Babar's trusted advisor, Cornelius is an old elephant frequently seen in a weird colonial formal soldier's suit, complete with sabre, although really the most active thing you ever see Cornelius do is let the king's children hang a swing on his tusks. In the early books he wore a lovely bowler hat, until Pom ruined it by floating in a pond with it and capsizing. Babar presented him afterwards with a handsome and grandiose two corner hat, kind of like you'd imagine pirates or herman melville characters (the captains, anyhow) wearing.

Cornelius—his name is an allusion to Planet of the Apes—is an exceptionally original Japanese pop musician who defies explanation or categorization. After being in a few bands including Flipper's Guitar he started his solo career in the early 1990s.

In my opinion, some of his best songs are "Star Fruits Surf Rider," "New Music Machine," and "Chapter 8," both on the album Fantasma. He has also released excellent remixes of Money Mark's "Maybe I'm Dead" (on his album) and Beck's "Mixed Bizness" (on the Mixed Bizness single)*. CM.
*corrected 24 Mar 2002

Norton was orginally going to make all his aliases names of Travolta characters from the 70s (and in fact had already appeared as Rupert and Travis) but somehow Cornelius crept in. Sadly, Travolta never appeared in the movie Planet of the Apes.

The Roman centurion Cornelius was apparently the first Gentile to become a Christian. In the book of Acts, Luke dwells on the story of Cornelius's conversion by Peter, placing it just after the conversion of Saul (Paul) - though the mission to the Greeks in Antioch may have taken place somwhat earlier.

Even before his conversion, Cornelius was sympathetic to the Jews among whom he was stationed and worshiped one God. In a vision at Caesarea, an angel appeared to the centurion and told him to summon Peter, who was then staying in Joppa. The next day, Peter himself had a vision, which occurred three times and which he interpreted as meaning that it was permissible for him to eat foods that Jews considered unclean. He then concluded that, just as no food was unclean, no person could be considered unclean either: Gentiles were as free as Jews to receive Jesus's teachings.

Peter was taken by the centurion's messengers to Caesarea, where Cornelius told him of the angel's summons. While Peter was preaching about Jesus, Cornelius and his fellow Gentiles began "speaking in tongues and extolling God" (Acts 10:46), a demonstration that they had been visited by the Holy Spirit and thus chosen for baptism. The brethren in Jerusalem were scandalizes by Peter's association with the uncircumcised, but he silenced their criticism by saying, "who was I that could withstand God?" (Acts 11:17).